From: Shannon Lalor (shannon@aspsky.org)
Date: Tue Feb 08 2000 - 07:38:20 PST
Message-Id: <v04003a16b4c5e5403036@[208.170.144.95]> Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2000 10:38:20 -0500 From: Shannon Lalor <shannon@aspsky.org> Subject: Re: working with scientist partners
Hello all:
I work on a scientist-teacher partnership program, Project ASTRO, at the
Astronomical Society of the Pacific. We pair professional and amateur
astronomers primarily with elementary and middle school teachers. Project
ASTRO has been pairing and training partnerships for seven years now via 14
national sites. (We have received funding from NSF and NASA for the
project.)
As you can imagine, we have spent a good deal of time and energy developing
a training model that seeks to balance the experiences and skills of
teachers and their astronomer partners. We have all the partners attend an
intensive two-day workshop where they learn about inquiry-based astronomy
education and effective partnering strategies. The partners work closely
together at the workshop and begin to plan their school-year activities.
We have found that the opportunity to plan (with guidance) really gets both
the teacher and the scientist thinking on the same page. We also require
the scientist to commit to no fewer than 4 classroom visits in the year.
While not all partnerships work out, we have an almost 95% success rate
among partners. The workshop seems to be the primary mechanism for success
and possibly the fact that both the teacher and the scientist are
volunteering their time. Neither partner is compensated for their
participation in the project. They do both, however, receive a copy of
'The Universe at Your Fingertips', our 813-page astronomy education
resource notebook, and additional activity materials.
I don't want to ramble on and on about the project, but I am willing to
contribute more about our experiences if it's of interest.
Shannon
>Hi all,
>
>In our last workshop, one of the participants mentioned that they work
>closely with scientist volunteers in classrooms in their district reform
>effort, but it doesn't always go smoothly.
>
>I think her experience may be widely shared. So if you have experiences
>with the benefits and challenges associated with working with scientist
>partners, please reply to this message with your thoughts.
>
>I told her about an article addressing this topic which compares the
>cultures of scientific research and teaching. This brief article makes it
>very clear why it it takes much more to teach well then to be a
>knowledgable researcher.
>
>The article comes from a newsletter of the Science Education Partnership --
>a department of the Universty of Caifornia in San Francisco which works
>with the local schools.
>
>It's located at: http://www.ucsf.edu/sep/news.html
>and it's an article in Nwletter #31: Winter 19998
>called "Common and Uncommon Ground: The professional cultures of science
>and education".
>
>This newsletter is a "PDF" document for which you'll need a piece of free
>software called Adobe Acrobat Reader which is linked to the above-mentioned
>website. If you have never "downloaded" a piece of software on the web and
>would like some help trying to do it, we have developed some, hopefully,
>easy to follow instructions for downloading adobe acrobat reader. These are
>at:
>
>http://www.exploratorium.edu/IFI/resources/pdf_info/index.html
>
>Finally, for those who want a sense of the article before doing anything
>else, I'll type in a piece of it now, and try to get permission to reprint
>the rest on the IFI website soon.
>
>The article has a ven diagram listing attributes of scientists and teachers
>and where the overlap is. I'll try to recreate it without drawing circles.
>
>
>SCIENTIST EDUCATOR
>
>critic nurturer
>intrinsic interest in science cultivate interest in science
>specialist generalist
>convergent questions divergent questions
>tackle simple problems first tackle complex problems first
>schedule from experiments schedule from school
>access to resources limited resources
>control variables respond to variables
>okay for experiments to fail experiements can't fail
>
> SHARED CHARACTERISTICS
>
> passion
> learning environment
> research-based
> public mistrust/blind faith
> prepared for the unexpected
> long hours
>
>PLease send your comments on working with scientists to the list, and let
>me know if you have tried to download the software but had difficulties.
>Cheers,
>
>Fred
>
>
>
>
>
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Shannon Lalor
National Coordinator
Project ASTRO
Astronomical Society of the Pacific
390 Ashton Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94112
or
P.O. Box 207
Barboursville, VA 22923
Phone: (540) 832.1741
http:/www.aspsky.org
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